Notes: Media Technology and Society -- Introduction and Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: The concept of "supervening social necessity" certainly rings true. This blog is a perfect example: once society changed to the point where many people feel the need to express themselves publicly, blogging software came along to handily meet the need.

I can also apply the idea, in a couple of ways, to the game console.

The most significant technological advancement in the next generation consoles, HD capacity DVD media, perfectly illustrates the contradictory forces of supervening social necessity and supression. We need the higher capacity media for HD movies, next gen games, etc. (which is the supervening social necessity), but a standard is not forthcoming because of the suppressive effects of the legal battles within the blu-ray/HD-DVD format war.

As for the game machine itself, it's evolution from "pong" to the multimedia powerhouse that it is today reflects the demand consumers have begun to make on their entertainment appliances: dvd playback, dvr recording, music serving, online games, and, once HDTV becomes ubiquitous, web and email. Just within the game-specific technologies, everything from speech recognition to user interface design are developing at a fast rate to meet the needs of the developers. It is not inconceivable that game consoles will play a role in mitigating the digital divide -- talk about supervening social necessity! Consoles cost 150$, pc's several times this amount.

HOWEVER, before consoles can really challenge the pc, HDTV must become the standard. NTSC is simply too course for email or web. It will be interesting to see if supervening social necessity will compel HD adoption, once people realize what they _could_ be doing on their game machines.

(As an aside, I suspect that, more likely, sports broadcasting will drive HD. Not such a supervening necessity, but in this country not all that much is anymore (my opinion). I imagine India and China will have an altogether more interesting set of forces at work when it comes to this sort of technology adoption.)

This raises the more interesting question: what is the "brake" (law of the suppression of radical potential) that is inhibiting HD adoption in the US market? Is it the investment base people have in NTSC devices, such as vcrs, dvd players, tivo, and the televisions themselves? If so, this is a perfect illustration of the way the technologically advanced countries can find themselves falling behind compared to developing countries, which may, through a combination of necessity and opportunity, leapfrog a generation of tech infrastructure. However, it's probably not that simple. I can imagine corporate interests playing a huge role in this negotiation, particularly in the US. Winston basically suggests so, though refering to the UK.

Another aside: I particularly appreciate that Winston uses the example of videogames to illustrate unintended technology spinoffs, in this case from the microprocessor (p 14).

CHAPTER 1: Winston's account of the scrambled efforts that eventually lead to the telegraph is very entertaining. It's charming to imagine inventing in such a mechanically straightforward world: 26 alphabetical characters MUST require 26 seperate channels of communication! I can really appreciate Morse's innovation, his insight that a single channel would suffice with a code, and that the code formula should be informed by the frequency of each letter in typical print typesetting.

It's amazing to contemplate the amount of existing infrastructure that we take for granted, particularly the fiber optic networks that were bizarrely over invested during the dot com boom and then sold off at discounter prices when the investing corporations collapsed. The last couple of pages of chapter 1 describe a fascinating environment in which competing telegraph technologies scrambled for supremacy, ultimately arbitrated by the american courts. Similarly unhinged, it would seem.